


The Prisoner

by Evil_Little_Dog



Category: Saiyuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Community: comment_fic, Gen, Prison, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25944613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/Evil_Little_Dog
Summary: Goku doesn't know why he's in prison but he is.
Kudos: 7
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	The Prisoner

The sun rose though Son Goku couldn't see it. He could watch the darkness warm slowly with the light spilling over the top of the mountain. The distant sounds bird song and other noises heralded the dawn.

Where he sat enclosed in granite and thick iron bars, the sun didn't touch. The warmth didn't reach him as the sun crisscrossed the mountain east to west and the bars of Goku's prison faced south. Some moss grew in the damp at the back of the cave, offering him a bit of moisture as a taunt.

The knob of stone grew nothing, not green plants, not birds. Very rarely even did an insect crawl across the stones to entertain the prisoner. A yellow butterfly entranced Goku for the short time it spent flitting outside the bars. Its dancing wings reminded him of old aches and dreams and he screamed and screamed when it fluttered away, no flowers to nourish it on this barren rock.

The moss wasn't good for eating but Goku's stomach rumbled continuously until he had to put something in it. He couldn't keep it down and the stink lingered in the cave until finally the sick dried up enough to blow away.

His tears made patterns on the stone floor. His throat ached from calling, crying, screaming. No one came.

He never thought how he didn't starve. How his thirst didn't kill him. How he never froze in the winter. He watched from behind the bars as the mountain trees changed their clothes, budding soft yellow then growing into thick green coats that crisped to brighter colors of yellow and orange and red and gold before blowing away in a storm of white. His own clothing never frayed, neither his hair nor his nails grew. His body didn't wither.

The blue bird stopped outside the bars and Goku drew near, pressing his face between the spacings. The bird hopped, chasing after a tiny beetle. Goku's laugh startled it, making it fly up. He tracked it in the sky. Sorrow escaped him as the bird darted back toward the trees.

The bird came back.

Goku offered it little insects he'd caught. He offered them up until winter, when the snow set the beetles to hibernating. The snow fell fast and silent and heavy and the bird froze.

His wails echoed around the mountain. If any were to hear, they might think a monster bellowed up on that stony knob.

But curiosity led no one to investigate.

And the decades drifted by.


End file.
